My NAD C515BEE is finished.............

[nad]

Hello,

From start to finish in 6ish weeks, 67 replacement caps, 3 Class D regs, opamps, CMC silver rca's, alot of dampening, a re-wire, a clock kit, a 12v toroidal, reels of mundorf solder, ground work, removal of un-needed bits, burnt fingers, quite a few problems, some mistakes, alot of shouting, waiting for parts to arrive on the slow boat from China and it's finished!

I've had a hard time finding any info on the 515, there's nothing out there at all. Nad themselves are useless. Trying to decipher chinese and Japanese is far too hard. So I had to rely on guess work and questions placed upon diyaudio.

What's the outcome? It's been a headache but it was well worth it and the Brucey bonus is......it sounds great!



I'd like to thank amc148 and Bill_P for their time, help and great info and Nick at amplifier valve kits, HIFI pre-amplifiers, speaker kits, upgrade components for a speedy, helpfull and excellent service.

There's a photo attached if anyone's interested.



Chow fa now

[nad]

Forgot to mention the chap who kindly guided me with my clock problem, so thank you Bill Fuss.

[nad]

Forgot to mention the other half of the system is almost finished too. It's been within the same 6ish weeks as the CDP and the same story regarding Mundorf caps, Welwyn resistors, opamps, re-wire, etc etc.
Just the CMC binding posts and RCA's to drop in and it's done.......

I'm extremely impatient and need everything done 'now' but some things have to wait.
All in all, it's coming on nicely and it sounds super, even if it is only for the office.

[Andrea:]

What are the opamps you chose? And what the D/A chip of this CD player?

[Bill Fuss]

Originally Posted by nad

Forgot to mention the chap who kindly guided me with my clock problem, so thank you Bill Fuss.

You're not done yet! You still have to replace the output circuitry with a discrete output stage!

[nad]

Originally Posted by Andrea:

What are the opamps you chose? And what the D/A chip of this CD player?

Hello Andrea,

I started with the LM4562MA opamps then changed to LME49720HA (tin hats) that are TO99 fitment but I soldered them direct to the smt. There was no room under the board so I had to drill the chassis and finish them with grommets. If I do say so myself, It looks like it came from the factory so that ended up being good news.

The D/A chip is the 24/192 Sigma/Delta.

[nad]

Originally Posted by Bill Fuss

You're not done yet! You still have to replace the output circuitry with a discrete output stage!

Well Bill Fuss, you may be onto something there. Only a few hours after saying it's finished, I've been contemplating adding 3 more toroidals for the dac and opamps, changing more diodes, resistors etc etc. When will it be complete?? my answer would probably be 'never', but who knows?

I might start on my Meridian next??

But then I might not and go back to the 515bee and go for a discrete output, any recommendations??

[amc184]

I'm glad to see that you got the player going.

What model of DAC is this player using? You said before that it is a 24 bit / 192 kHz delta sigma, but that describes the function. We were looking for something like "it's a PCM1702" or similar.

Depending on the model of DAC, I don't know how much more I would do to it if I were you. It just doesn't seem to be, on the surface, a player worth spending a whole lot of time and money on. That super intergrated VLSI, the one that does clock generation among a million other things, is the sort of thing I would expect to find in a 'boom box'.

That's not to say that this is nesessarily a bad thing, there is a huge thread on a boom box player, but its just not the platform I would have chosen to modify.

[nad]

Originally Posted by amc184

I'm glad to see that you got the player going.

What model of DAC is this player using? You said before that it is a 24 bit / 192 kHz delta sigma, but that describes the function. We were looking for something like "it's a PCM1702" or similar.

Depending on the model of DAC, I don't know how much more I would do to it if I were you. It just doesn't seem to be, on the surface, a player worth spending a whole lot of time and money on. That super intergrated VLSI, the one that does clock generation among a million other things, is the sort of thing I would expect to find in a 'boom box'.

That's not to say that this is nesessarily a bad thing, there is a huge thread on a boom box player, but its just not the platform I would have chosen to modify.

Thanks for your input (as disheartening as it was) but I'm not really into following the 'norm', hence no CD63.
The nad cd/amp combo & B&W's were bought 'just' for office at home and considering 95% of my working life is at our main premesis, they're rarely used so I thought I'd have a little play with them but then I got a bit carried away. I own other systems which are far, far better but that's another story.

[Andrea:]

Yup it would be interesting to know what DAC it uses exactly, because that's what sets the potential of the player mostly.

24/192 covers a lot of things... personally I've heard an AK4385, and I thought it sounded much worse than the CS4398.